Anna Manahan (1924 - 2009)

Anna Manahan was born in County Waterford in what was then the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland). Her career began when, as a young woman, she was recruited by the legendary Irish impresarios and theatrical directors Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards. She later married stage director Colm O’Kelly, who died not long […]

Nancy Reagan (1921 - 2016)

Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American actress and the wife of the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. She was the First Lady of the United States during her husband’s 2 presidential terms from 1981-1985 and 1985-1989. Nancy Reagan was born in New […]

Anna Magnani (1908 - 1973)

Anna Magnani (Italian pronunciation: [ˈanna maɲˈɲaːni]; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo. Born in Rome, she worked her way through Rome’s Academy of […]

Cleo Madison (1883 - 1964)

Cleo Madison began her acting career on stage with the Santa Barbara Stock Company. She made her first professional appearances on the stages of the Burbank Theatre and the Belasco in 1911. She played the role of the mother in Captain Swift. In March 1912 she debuted as the leading female player in Ernest Shipman’s […]

Dorothy Mackaill (1903 - 1990)

By 1920, Dorothy Mackaill had begun making the transition from “Follies Girl” to film actress. That same year she appeared in her first film, the Wilfred Noy-directed mystery, The Face at the Window. Mackaill also appeared in several comedies of 1920 opposite actor Johnny Hines. In 1921 she appeared opposite Anna May Wong, Noah Beery, […]

Marion Mack (1902 - 1989)

Marion Mack was born Joey Marion McCreery in Mammoth, Utah. After graduating from high school, she sent a letter and a photograph to director Mack Sennett expressing her desire to be an actress. Sennett’s manager wrote back informing Mack that they would give her an interview if she ever came to Hollywood. Mack, her father […]

Cynthia Lynn (1936 - 2014)

Cynthia Lynn (born Zinta Valda Ziemelis; April 2, 1936 – March 10, 2014) was a Latvian-born American actress. Cynthia Lynn was born in Latvia as Zinta Valda Ziemelis. She and her mother fled in 1944, eventually arriving in the United States in 1950. Cynthia Lynn is best known as “Fraulein Helga” in Hogan’s Heroes during the first […]

Laurette Luez (1928 - 1999)

Laurette Luez was the second of three children born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Frank and Francesca Luiz, vaudeville singers and dancers who performed traditional Hawaiian and Spanish music. Luez’s father was Hawaiian with some Portuguese ancestry. Her mother was Australian, the daughter of an actor. Luez first showed up on stage doing a hula dance […]

Barbara Luddy (1908 - 1979)

Barbara Luddy (May 25, 1908 — April 1, 1979) was an American actress from Great Falls, Montana. Her film career began with silent pictures in the 1920s, during which time she was also a prolific radio performer. One of her better known performances on radio was on the The First Nighter Program from 1936 until […]

Judith Lowry (1890 - 1976)

Judith Lowry made her stage debut in 1913 in a stock company in Washington, D.C. Later in 1921 when she became pregnant with her first child she would retire from acting to raise her family. She resumed her acting career in 1952 after her youngest of 9 children, Martha, turned 18. She made several stage […]

Olga Lowe (1919 - 2013)

Olga Lowe (14 September 1919 – 2 September 2013) was a South African-born British film, stage and television actress. She made her film debut in an uncredited role in the 1949 film Trottie True. Her many credits included EastEnders, Where Eagles Dare, Carry On Abroad, Steptoe and Son Ride Again and The Riddle of the […]

Bessie Love (1898 - 1986)

On actor Tom Mix’s recommendation that she “get into pictures”, BessieLove’s mother sent her to Biograph Studios, where she met pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Griffith, who introduced Bessie Love to films, also gave the actress her screen name. He gave her a small role in his film Intolerance (1916). Love dropped out of Los […]

Dorothy Loudon (1925 - 2003)

Dorothy Loudon’s performance as the evil orphanage administrator Miss Hannigan in Annie won her the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical in 1977. In the show she introduced the seminal showtunes “Little Girls” and “Easy Street.” Of her portrayal, Clive Barnes wrote, “As the wicked Miss Hannigan, […]

Louise Lorraine (1904 - 1981)

Louise Lorraine (October 1, 1904 – February 2, 1981) was an American film actress. She was born Louise Escovar on October 1, 1904 in San Francisco, California. One day, a photography salesman knocked on the door of the Los Angeles home where Louise Lorraine lived with her widowed mother and five siblings. The door was answered […]

Lillian Lorraine (1892 - 1955)

Born in San Francisco, California, Lillian Lorraine began her career on stage in 1906 at the age of 14. An entertainer of limited talent but charismatic stage presence and beauty, in 1907 she was 15 years old and a minor performer in a Shubert production, The Tourists, when she was discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld. He […]

Marion Lorne (1883 - 1968)

Marion Lorne was born Marion Lorne MacDougall in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, a small mining town halfway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. She was the daughter of Dr. William Lorne MacDougall, MD, and his wife, Jane Louise (née Oliver), known as “Jennie”. She was born in 1883 (although by the 1920s she had shaved five years off […]

Teala Loring (1922 - 2007)

Teala Loring (October 6, 1922 – January 28, 2007) was an American actress who appeared in over thirty films during the 1940s.  A pretty brunette, she is remembered from numerous cinematic features of the 1940s. Born Marcia Eloise Griffin in Denver, Colorado, she was the sister of actors Debra Paget, Lisa Gaye, and Reull Shayne. […]

Denise Lor (1929 - 2015)

Denise Lor (May 3, 1929 – September 27, 2015) was an American popular singer and actress. She was a featured artist on The Garry Moore Show. In 1951, she appeared in the short-lived variety show Seven at Eleven. Of French parentage and born Denise Jeanne Briault, in Los Angeles, Denise Lor moved with her mother to […]

Audrey Long (1922 - 2014)

Audrey Long was born on April 14, 1922 in Orlando, Florida. She was educated at St. Margaret’s School for Girls in Tappahannock, Virginia, Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California, and Disputana High School. Her father, C.S. Long, an Episcopal minister was a naturalized American citizen and served as a chaplain with the United […]

Alice Lon (1926 - 1981)

By age 6, Alice Lon was taking lessons in piano, singing, and dancing. When she was 10, she was featured as a singer, earning $20 per week on her own radio program in Henderson, Texas. In her teens, she traveled across Texas, performing in a variety of venues. She attended Kilgore College in Texas and […]

Ella Logan (1913 - 1969)

Ella Logan was born as Georgina Allan in Glasgow in 1910, where she was raised. She began performing under the name Ella Allan as a child. She went on to become a band singer in music halls. At the age of 17 in 1930, she made her debut in the West End of London in Darling! […]

Jeanette Loff (1906 - 1942)

Jeanette Loff (October 9, 1906 – August 4, 1942) was an American motion picture actress and singer. Born Janette Lov was born in Orofino, Idaho. She was the eldest of a family of five children born to Morris and Inga Loff. Her parents were of Norwegian and Danish heritage. Her father was a professional violinist who […]

Doris Lloyd (1896 - 1968)

Doris Lloyd (3 July 1896 – 21 May 1968) was an English stage and screen actress. She went to America to visit a sister already living there. What was supposed to be a visit she made permanent. She spent several years (1916–25) appearing in Broadway plays, notably a number of Ziegfeld Follies editions, and probably spent […]

Margaret Livingston (1895 - 1984)

Margaret Livingston (November 25, 1895 – December 13, 1984) was an American film actress, most notable for her work during the silent film era. She was sometimes credited as Marguerite Livingston or Margaret Livingstone. She remains best known today as “the Woman from the City” in F.W. Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two […]

Ann Little (1891 - 1984)

Ann Little was born Mary Brooks on a ranch near the town of Mount Shasta, California, she began appearing in a traveling stock theater group after graduating high school. After briefly relocating to San Francisco in the early 1910s, she made the transition to films; first appearing in one-reel Western shorts with actor and director […]

Moira Lister (1923 - 2007)

Born in Cape Town to Major James Lister and Margaret (née Hogan), Moira Lister was educated at the Parktown Convent of the Holy Family, Johannesburg. She began her acting career on stage in South Africa and then went on to act in the London theatre at the age of 18. Lister began working in films in […]

Audra Lindley (1918 - 1997)

Born in Los Angeles, California, Audra Lindley was the daughter of show business parents. Her father was Bert Lindley, an actor who played small roles from 1917 through 1937. She got her early start in Hollywood by being a stand-in, which eventually progressed to stunt work, and eventually became a contract player with Warner Brothers. […]

Beatrice Lillie (1894 - 1989)

Beatrice Lillie was born in Toronto to John Lillie and wife Lucie-Ann Shaw. Her father had been a British Army officer in India and later was a Canadian government official. Her mother was a concert singer. Beatrice performed in other Ontario towns as part of a family trio with her mother and older sister, Muriel. […]

Winnie Lightner (1899 - 1971)

Winnie Lightner was born in Greenport, New York, but was raised in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen by her aunt and uncle, Margaret and Andrew Hansen. She had a successful career in vaudeville and finally made it to Broadway, where she performed in George White’s Scandals of 1922, 1923, and 1924, in the musical revue Gay Paree […]

Shari Lewis (1933 - 1998)

In 1952, Shari Lewis and her puppetry won first prize on the CBS television series Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Lewis then hosted several New York children’s series through the decade. On July 5, 1953 Lewis made her television hosting debut on Facts N’Fun on NBC-owned WRCA-TV. The program was a variety show where she engaged […]